


The Pace is On a Runaway Train

by twilights_blue



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilights_blue/pseuds/twilights_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it was all Eames could do not to punch Arthur when the younger man opened his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pace is On a Runaway Train

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in December of 2010 for a gift exchange. Just moving it here to keep all my stuff archived, so please ignore any glaring awfulness.

“We have a job that needs a forger.”

Eames leaned back in his seat, grinning even though Arthur couldn’t see the expression over the phone. “And you decided to offer me the job? Really, Arthur, this is quite an honor.”

A quiet sound, almost like a bitten back sigh, made its way over the phone line. “I don’t have the patience for amateurs at the moment, that’s all.”

“You're offering compliments now? Goodness, you really _must_ be desperate.”

“Hardly. I’m just on a time limit,” Arthur said shortly. “So are you interested or not?”

“Of course,” Eames said even as he stood up and began to gather the things he would need to pack. “You and Cobb always manage to find the most interesting jobs to work on.”

Arthur passed on the meet-up information in short, clipped sentences and hung up without so much as a goodbye. Smirking, Eames finished packing and was out the door in less than twenty minutes.

~*

Arthur had been fresh out of the military when Eames met him. Back then he didn’t act so at home in a three-piece suit, wearing it as if unsure that he had it on right. The forger hadn’t really paid much attention to him at the beginning; the Cobbs went through point men at a ridiculously fast pace, and the odds of this kid lasting for more than a few months were very slim indeed. 

Then they had gone under together during a test run. Eames was wearing the skin of one of his newer female forgeries, practicing her confident stride and broad, commanding gestures even as he attempted to blend in with the projections crowding around him. He had already seen Cobb and Mal, and they both had looked through and past him as they surveyed the crowd. Feeling confident, Eames was now trying to track down Arthur to see how long he could keep the younger man from guessing who he was really talking to.

Just as he was about to duck into a bar, he felt the unmistakable press of gun at his back, directly over his heart. Fighting the instinct to tense and lash out, Eames turned his head just enough to see Arthur standing behind him, smirking in triumph. Before the forger could even try to prove himself to be a projection, Arthur pulled the trigger. Eames had enough time to register that he had very badly underestimated the kid before he found himself blinking awake in the warehouse.

The forger was willing to forget that the little bastard had managed to outsmart him in the face of the fact that it was more than likely that the Cobbs would be getting rid of him in a month or two. But then Arthur stuck around, became the couple’s permanent point man because, as Mal was fond of saying, he was more brilliant than they had originally thought.

Eames was able to concede the fact that the younger man was pretty damn intelligent and one of the best point men he had ever worked with. However, he couldn’t just ignore the fact that Arthur was also one of the most condescending, arrogant pricks he had ever met. Sometimes it was all Eames could do to not outright punch Arthur when the younger man opened his mouth.

In order to work some of his irritation off, Eames teased Arthur, pulling the point man into several easy – and not so easy – arguments whenever they worked together. It helped the forger restrain the urge to actually do anything violent, and Arthur seemed to be getting the same sort of results from their verbal sparring. Soon enough the bickering was nearly habitual, something easy and constant when they worked together. Eames wouldn’t have had it any other way.

~*

Cobb looked like hell. Dark circles were stamped under his eyes, and his shoulders were slumped as if he was carrying an impossible weight. He clutched at Mal’s – at his - totem like a lifeline, and he checked it almost every hour. Every aspect of him screamed _I am a broken man_. Losing Mal had done that, Eames realized with a small bit of wonder. Even after a year, the wound that her death had left on Cobb was still mostly fresh. Eames had known Mal, had seen the way she and Cobb had been with each other, and yet seeing how much Cobb had loved her – how much he still loved her – was almost staggering.

“Good to see that you’re still in one piece,” Eames said lightly. Cobb nodded to him, but didn’t look up from the blueprints he was working on.

Arthur turned to glance at the forger. “You’re late. I expected you yesterday.”

“Changing time zones has been known to confuse a man,” Eames said with a shrug. “Jetlag and all of that, you know how it is.”

The point man narrowed his eyes. Both men were quite aware that time zones had never been known to confuse Eames – he was, if anything, a man that was highly capable of adapting to anything. Arthur chose not to comment on it, though, turning back to his notes instead. “Since you finally decided to grace us with your presence, we can get started on the actual details of the job.”

Eames grinned, dropping into a nearby chair. “Wonderful. I’ve been wondering how an extraction could be complex enough that you would decide to call me. Last time I saw you, I was sure you were determined to never be in the same room, let alone the same country, as me again.”

Arthur fixed him with a sharp look. “If you weren’t the best in the business, believe me, I would make sure to never work with you again,” he said coldly. “As it is, I am regretting not giving you any permanent damage when I had the chance.”

“Keep saying things like that, Arthur, and I’ll start to thinking you don’t like me.”

~*

Last time they had worked together had been almost two years ago. It had been a demanding job, and everyone was on edge and snapping at each other over every little thing. Arthur and Eames’ banter, already sharp by default, became even harsher. It was only inevitable that a few weeks into the job, after a botched test run and one too many barely-veiled insults, Arthur had taken a swing at Eames.

The resulting fistfight managed to get rather brutal before the Cobbs pulled them apart. Arthur walked away with a cut lip, three broken fingers in his left hand, and a badly sprained wrist. Eames was left nursing a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder. And, of course, there were the nasty-looking bruises that were rising to the surfaces of both of their skins.

Mal led Arthur to the other side of the abandoned studio they had been using as a workshop, talking to Arthur in a soft, calming voice. Cobb spoke to Eames with the same tone he probably used to reprimand his children. Fights amongst teammates were pointless and counterproductive. If Eames was going to have trouble remembering that, then he could leave right then and there.

Eames had apologized and said he understood, injecting the right amount of sincerity in his voice even as he looked over Cobb’s shoulder at the beat-up and pissed off point man. There was something strangely alluring about seeing Arthur rumpled, bloody, and emotional. The forger couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to lick the blood away from and bite at the split lip he had given Arthur.

~*

The job was a beast, there was no doubt about that. Calvin Salnas, the lead scientist for a research team at Beta Pharmaceuticals, had made a breakthrough that would greatly aid the treatment of some forms of cancer. However, he was unwilling to share his findings until he received a rather substantial raise. Unwilling to fork over the millions that Salnas was demanding, his bosses had decided that an extraction was the more viable option.

Salnas, however, proved to be one paranoid bastard. He had recently begun to live out of his private lab space, which was locked with three separate numeric codes. He had told the three people he worked with – his assistant and two interns – one code each, so that they would only be able to access the area if all three of them were there. In order to perform an extraction on Salnas, the codes would have to be extracted from each of his employees first.

“It’s as if he _knew_ someone would want to steal the information instead of buying it,” Eames grumbled as he flipped through the notes Arthur had provided. “I’ve never seen someone go this far to protect his _lab_.”

“His work is valuable and he knows it,” Arthur said. “If it’s worth as much as it’s been implied, then I can see why he would want to protect it.”

Indicating the photos he had taped to the whiteboard behind him, the point man added, “The extractions of the interns look like they should be straightforward enough. For those, Eames, you’ll just be there to act as an extra pair of hands if something goes wrong during the extraction. Highly unlikely, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Boy Scout to the end, Eames thought with amusement. Keeping such comments to himself, though, he asked, “What about the other two? The actual mark and his assistant?”

Arthur tapped the assistant’s picture. “Michael Reed. He’s almost as bad as Salnas. His subconscious will be a lot more agitated than the average mark’s. We’ll need to give him a distraction to keep him relatively calm.”

“Which just happens to be one of my specialties.” The forger rubbed at his lower lip in thought. “Does Reed have any life outside the lab?”

“He has an apartment a few blocks away. While he does go home every night, he doesn’t seem to have much of a social life. He’s just as dedicated to the lab as Salnas is.”

Eames flicked between Salnas and Reed’s profiles, skimming the details in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur watching him with growing impatience. Just when the point man opened his mouth to say something, Eames straightened in his seat and cut him off.

“It looks like I’ll be forging Salnas for Reed and Reed for Salnas. The labs have security cameras, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant. Those should give me a good start. I believe that the whole mess won’t take more than six weeks.”

Arthur arched an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. “Six weeks?” he repeated. “That seems a little long.”

Eames smirked. “You’ve been hanging about too many amateur forgers in the last couple of years. We don’t need an obvious flaw ruining the con and resulting in us getting torn apart by a mob of psychotic projections. I like to be thorough,” he finished, his smile widening into something akin to a leer. “As I’m sure you found out during our previous times together.”

“Six weeks will be fine,” Cobb interjected before Arthur could snap back at the forger. “We can work on the interns during that time.”

“See? Everything’s nicely sorted out. No need to worry yourself to death, hm?”

The point man looked like he was ready to argue about the matter a bit longer, but Cobb’s expression stopped him short. Muttering something about finding potential times to grab the interns, Arthur turned his back on the other two men and strode back to his desk. Eames couldn’t keep from looking rather smug for the next several minutes.

~*

Eames wasn’t entirely sure exactly when his thoughts towards Arthur had changed. It seemed that one day he was struggling not to strangle the arrogant man, and then the next he was watching the way the point man handled a gun and dodged projections with a mix of appreciation and inexplicable attraction. Perhaps it had something to do with seeing hints and flashes of humanity behind Arthur’s cold, impersonal front. Perhaps it was the fact that, if you got past the point man’s more abrasive traits, it was obvious that he was clever, intelligent, and rather engaging to talk to. Perhaps it was a mixture of both. Or perhaps Eames had just finally gone mad.

No matter the reason, Eames was not one to keep such epiphanies entirely to himself. He began to flirt as well as tease, innuendos easily situating themselves within their banter. He also gave Arthur a few light touches when he thought he could get away with it – mostly on the arm and back, nothing blatantly inappropriate. Arthur was a frighteningly observant man; Eames was sure that he would figure out what the forger was trying to convey with his slight change in behavior.

But as Eames continued to work and flirt with Arthur, he had to grudgingly admit that the point man was acting, well, oblivious. At least, he didn’t seem to recognize that anything Eames said or did as anything but contentious. Every time Arthur answered an obvious innuendo with something condescending or simply ignored a flirtatious comment, it just added to Eames’ usual frustration with the straight-laced, gorgeous, arrogant, _dense_ point man.

It had gotten to the point where Eames was seriously considering simply pinning Arthur to the nearest flat surface and _showing_ him how much he was driving Eames crazy.

~*

Hacking into Beta’s security cameras had been easy enough. Eames now had a constant view of Salnas’ lab, so he could watch the scientist interact with his workers. Arthur hadn’t been kidding; the only time Salnas left his lab was to pick up chemicals and equipment from other rooms, and even then he was more likely to send one of the interns to pick it up than do it himself. His constant presence in the lab, however, meant that Eames had an unlimited time frame for studying, memorizing, and practicing his various habits. Salnas’ paranoia, while generally frustrating for the job overall, made him perfect forging material.

Reed ended up being a bit more difficult. While he was in the lab, he spent most of his time working in an area that had him keeping his back to the camera. When he interacted with Salnas, Eames was quick to pick up on his submissive body language, the way he nearly leaped to do anything his boss so much as hinted at wanting. That would be useful, but Eames was still lacking Reed’s basic nervous habits and little quirks. About three weeks into the job, Eames decided to try his luck with following Reed while he wasn’t in the lab. Which was why he was currently sitting in an inconspicuous car across the street from a Starbucks, watching Reed buy coffee through the high-powered lens of his camera.

This did not, however, explain why Arthur was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, watching Eames watching Reed.

“Explain to me what you’re doing here, again?” Eames asked as he made a mental note of the way Reed refused to meet the cashier’s eye, choosing instead to focus on the counter between them.

“I just want to make sure that the information I got on Reed’s normal activities away from the lab is accurate,” Arthur answered, voice bland. “Sometimes my sources can be wrong, and I don’t want to coordinate a potential extraction time on bad information.”

“Makes sense.” Eames would have added something sarcastic to that, but Reed had just shifted to run a hand through his hair. The forger snapped several pictures of the movement, one right after the other, making sure to capture the motion in its entirety.

Arthur shifted in his seat, trying to look at the photos over Eames’ shoulder. “I’d never thought that you’d have to use a camera for research,” the point man commented.

The forger snorted, keeping an eye on Reed as he struggled to find a seat in the crowded café. “You didn’t think forgery needed this much effort, eh?”

“No, nothing like that. I just thought you’d prefer a more direct approach. Actually going up to and interacting with the mark, that sort of thing.”

“I do for most jobs,” Eames conceded. “I’m trying to be more cautious during this one, though. No need to show myself to Reed, just in case my cover is blown while we’re down there and he recognizes me.”

“I doubt that he would recognize you after just seeing you for a few seconds in reality.”

“You never know. I’d rather not take the chance.” Eames lowered the camera to glance over at Arthur. “Especially when the man already seems to have some connections to the underworld.”

That last part had Arthur straightening in his seat. “ _What_?”

Eames nodded towards where Reed was sitting. “The man across from him is Nicholas Fox. He’s a small-time thief, and has been known to dabble in…private security, I guess would be the way to phrase it.”

“So Reed hired him as protection?” Arthur had pulled his Moleskine out of his jacket pocket, rapidly jotting down what Eames had said. “Do you think he suspects anything?”

“It’s most likely paranoia,” the forger said, eyes fixed on the criminal and scientist once more. “It’s enough to make me want to be careful, though. Fox is one vicious bugger. I’d rather not wake up from the job with half of my limbs missing or mauled.”

The point man made a vague noise of agreement, finishing up his notes before tucking the small book away once more. “I’ll look into it when we get back. No need to get yourself killed because of something like that.”

Eames turned back to Arthur, grinning broadly. “Is that concern for my wellbeing that I hear? I’m touched.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Please. I just want to make sure that the job works out. We can’t go through with it if you manage to get yourself kidnapped or something.”

“With you on point, I doubt that things will go _that_ badly.”

“Your vote of confidence is much appreciated, Mr. Eames,” Arthur said dryly, and though he was obviously trying to hide it, a ghost of a smile made its way onto his lips, revealing the faintest hints of dimples.

“Any time, Arthur.”

The sincerity of his statement must have bled through a little bit, because the point man gave him a look that was a mix of surprise and – God, but was it really? - vulnerability. And it would’ve been easy, so, _so_ easy to just reach over and touch—

Clearing his throat, Eames leaned back in his seat and started to disassemble his camera. “I think that’s enough stalking for one day,” he said lightly. “What say we head back to the warehouse and tell Cobb our discovery?”

The younger man’s shoulders tensed the slightest bit – the only hint he ever gave when something startled him. He settled down a moment later, looking down at his hands as he spoke. “Yeah, we should. And I’ll have to get started on a few backup plans, just in case Reed really does end up becoming a problem…”

Arthur trailed off into a mutter as Eames started the car and drove back towards the warehouse. The forger left him to it, absently thinking about his own escape plan just in case there was any actual fallout. Though, if he was being honest, he had some serious doubts that the plan would actually go that badly at all.

~*

While being attracted to Arthur was bloody frustrating, Eames was mostly able to live with it. Besides flirting, the forger never showed any serious intent. The reason for this was two-fold: first, Eames was accustomed to hiding most of his actual emotions, so this was just an extension of that habit; second, he wasn’t entirely sure if he actually wanted a meaningful relationship with Arthur. It could have just been the challenge that the point man presented that Eames found attractive. If that was the case, then it was more than likely that Eames would simply lose interest the moment that challenge disappeared.

It would be better for the both of them if Eames just kept his mouth shut about that whole business. His attraction would fade on its own, and that would be the end of that.

~*

He ended up being wrong – things went south almost immediately. And even that was an understatement.

One of the interns was a naturally lucid dreamer, and had apparently realized that something about the dream was slightly off from the beginning. The day after having the code extracted from her, the intern had gone and described her odd dream to Reed. Reed, of course, went straight to Fox, who quickly started searching for – and tracked down – the only active extraction team in the city.

None of the team really knew that anything had gone wrong until Arthur’s rental car, which had been parked behind the warehouse, went up in a huge ball of flames. At that point, the trio only had a handful of minutes to prepare themselves before a dozen men flooded the warehouse.

All three of them managed to escape from the warehouse during the resulting firefight. Cobb reached his car completely unscathed, and he wasted no time in jumping in and starting it up. The extractor yelled at the other two men to meet him in France before gunning the motor and driving away, leaving Arthur and Eames to fend for themselves.

That plan, to be honest, was probably not the best one to choose at that time.

“The next time I see Cobb,” Eames growled, “I am going to kill him.”

Arthur didn’t respond, too busy shooting at their assailants and keeping his injured arm as still as possible. Cursing their predicament, Eames fired off a few rounds of his own before finally getting his car unlocked. “Get in.”

The point man looked at the passenger door, then back up at Eames. “You’re planning to drive?” he asked with faint incredulity.

“Well, seeing as I’m the only one with both arms intact, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he snapped. “And besides, you’re better at shooting from a speeding car than I am. Now get in, please, so that we can get away from all of this bloody _shooting_.”

Seeming to realize that an argument really wasn’t appropriate during a shootout, Arthur slipped into the car without another word. Eames wasted no time in sprinting around to the driver’s side so he could get in, start the car with a roar of the engine, and get them the hell out of there.

Fox’s men followed them for a while, but a few well-aimed shots from Arthur disabled their vehicles and allowed Eames to get them out of the city with relative ease. After that, they drove for several hours, taking nearly-nonexistent back roads when they could and doubling back at least once in order to make pursuit difficult. By the time Eames felt it was safe enough to stop at a motel, it was nearly dusk.

After acquiring a room, Eames helped Arthur with the bags he had managed to stow into the car when all hell broke loose. Checking to make sure that the hallways were clear, he then led Arthur to their room, ushered him in, and bolted the door behind them.

“We should be alright here for the night,” Eames said as he sat down on the bed. “Though we should probably head out as early as possible tomorrow.”

Arthur nodded, but cut the motion short when it caused him to sway on his feet. The forger caught onto the action and gave the point man a sharp, calculated look. Upon closer inspection, Eames noticed how pale Arthur was, and how much of an effort it was for the other man to stay on his feet.

“Christ,” Eames breathed. Then, standing, he asked, “How badly are you hurt?”

“It’s not that bad,” Arthur said, trying to shift away from the older man. “Just a couple of grazes.”

“Bullshit. You’re bleeding too much for it to be a graze.” He reached for the point man’s jacket. “Let me—“ 

Arthur tried to pull away, but couldn’t move fast enough. “No, Eames, don’t—“

Pulling the bloody jacket away, Eames sucked in a sharp breath. The point man’s usually pristine shirt was stained red on most of the right side, from shoulder to waist.

“Graze my ass,” Eames muttered, shoving the jacket partially off of Arthur’s shoulders. “Shirt and jacket off. That needs to be treated.”

Arthur scowled but obeyed. “I didn’t realize that you overreacted to your teammates’ injuries.”

“I am not overreacting at all.”

“Really. I’ve noticed you’re hurt, too, but you don’t see me demanding you to strip.”

“That’s because my injuries actually _are_ grazes,” Eames replied shortly before forcing Arthur to take a seat on the bed. “Now sit here while I try to scrounge up some first aid.”

Arthur, now bare from the waist up, crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “There should be a kit in my bag.”

“Wonderful.” Eames found the first aid kit in question and, after getting a few of the motel’s complimentary towels damp, started the process of cleaning Arthur’s wound

A bullet wound in Arthur’s right shoulder was the cause of all of the blood, and was the only real injury that the point man had received from the earlier fight. Fortunately, the bullet had gone clear through, meaning that only sterilization and bandaging were necessary at this point.

“Jesus, Arthur,” Eames murmured as he made a compress for the wound, which was still bleeding sluggishly. “Why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve had this treated hours ago.”

Arthur bit his lip when the forger pressed gauze over his shoulder, but showed no other signs of pain beyond that. “I didn’t know where to find the closest doctor that would be willing to help us.”

Eames let out a small laugh that didn’t even sound close to amused. “You probably have a list of doctors within a five mile radius of our current spot, so I doubt that you didn’t have any contacts within the actual city. Besides, if you didn’t have anyone, _I_ did. You could’ve asked me at any time.”

“We would have been tracked within hours if we had stopped for medical assistance,” the point man stated. “And honestly? I had been more concerned about the men trying to kill us than I was about finding a doctor.”

“Of course you were,” Eames replied. His voice was harsh, but he made sure to keep his hands gentle where they were tying off the bandages. “God forbid your wellbeing come before the job, even if it ends up having you bleeding out and dying a perfectly preventable--“

Arthur suddenly brought his hand up, pressing against Eames’ chest and shoving. He was weak from blood loss, so the push didn’t have much strength in it, but it was enough to cut off the forger’s rant and make him look up. The point man was studying him with dark, narrowed eyes, and his posture was tense as if he was preparing to defend himself.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Arthur demanded. “You’ve never acted like this when we’ve been shot at before.”

Eames started to say that there was nothing wrong with him, but he caught himself before the words could leave his mouth. He couldn’t exactly deny that he was a lot more shaken about their current situation than he normally was when a job went to shit. There was something about seeing Arthur hurt this time around, though, that was driving him crazy. Eames had the faint desire to keep Arthur safe and make sure he never got into harm’s way again. Which, now that he thought about it, sounded pretty damn, well, protective.

Alright, maybe what Eames was feeling about Arthur was a lot more serious than he had been pretending it was. Suppressing the urge to knock his head against the nearest wall, the forger decided that now was not the best time to have this sort of self-realization. He could figure out how to deal with all of that later. Right now, though, he had to make sure that he remained as normal as possible in order to keep from freaking Arthur out even more than he already had.

Running a hand through his hair and letting out a quiet sigh, Eames gave Arthur a small smile. “Sorry,” he said. “I suppose I’m still a little tense from what happened today.”

Arthur continued to study Eames’ face for another moment before apparently deciding that what he was seeing was satisfactory. “It’s alright,” he said, tracing light fingers over his bad shoulder. “I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being taken care of by a man that had suddenly decided to go insane.”

“Several people would argue that I’ve gone well past the line of insanity already,” the forger said with a grin. “No, I’m just--” he faltered for a second, just for a bloody second, but it was long enough for him to unthinkingly ask, “What if you had lost too much blood to be saved?”

The point man shrugged with his good shoulder before glancing away. “Then I would die.”

Eames was caught off-guard by how nonchalant Arthur sounded. “You’re really okay with dying for your job?” he asked softly. While aware of the risks of the extraction business, Eames was first and foremost a thief. He would be loyal to his team while he was working with them, but the moment things got a little too hot for his taste, he was more likely to cut his losses and run instead of risking getting killed for a group of people he barely knew. 

“I’m a point man; it’s my job to get shot at,” Arthur answered calmly. “Besides, it’s not as if I’m one of a kind; there are at least three people in the world who could sufficiently take over my job if anything should happen.”

That last sentence, with its deadpan delivery, coupled with the fact that Arthur was still refusing to meet his gaze, made something in Eames snap. Forgetting his promise to himself to play the part of an unconcerned acquaintance, the forger reached forward and gently grasped the point man’s chin. Ignoring the way Arthur immediately tensed at his touch, Eames forced Arthur to look at him. The point man was wearing the same expression as he had a few days ago, back in the car – the odd mixture of shock and hesitancy that had made Eames want to do something inappropriate to the other man.

He had restrained himself then, but he saw no reason to do so now.

Leaning down, Eames claimed Arthur’s mouth in a rough kiss. Arthur remained stock-still, shocked into immobility, but within a few seconds he let out a low sound and pushed back against Eames as he began to reciprocate. The kiss was a meeting of teeth and tongues, hardly anything that could be labled as tender, but it was still extremely satisfying.

They separated soon enough, the pressing need for air forcing them to pull away. Arthur was watching Eames with wide, dark eyes, chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath. “What--?”

“You,” Eames panted, making sure to keep his eyes locked on the other man’s, “are _not_ replaceable. Alright?”

Arthur blinked in surprise, as if such a thought hadn’t really occurred to him before. He shifted a little, restless, but he didn’t break eye contact with Eames. Then, slowly, he nodded.

Smiling gently, Eames gave Arthur another, much softer kiss. “Good.”

~*

They traveled cross country for a few days after that, sticking to small roads and avoiding any large cities. When they came across a city with an airport, they decided it was time to split up. Arthur would go to France to meet up with Cobb, and Eames would go back to Mombasa, one of the few places where he wasn’t wanted for a myriad of crimes.

Eames glanced over at his terminal before turning back to Arthur. “Call me when the next job comes around, yeah?” he asked cheerily.

Arthur nodded, shifting the suitcase strap that was digging into his good shoulder. “Try to keep yourself out of prison.”

“Please, give me some credit, Arthur. I didn’t become the best at what I do by getting caught.”

The speakers above them crackled loudly before a voice blared out, and Eames glanced up at them. “Looks like my flight’s about to leave,” he said. Picking up his bag, he turned towards his terminal. “Take care, Arthur.”

“Wait.”

A slim hand wrapped itself around Eames’ wrist, making him turn around again. Arthur was looking at the floor, expression unsure. After a small, hesitant moment, the point man glanced up, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against the forger’s.

“Thank you,” he said softly when he pulled away, a small smile tugging at his lips.

It was all Eames could do to give Arthur a broad, honest grin. “Any time, darling.”


End file.
